Inside the archives of the NASA Ames Research Center

The center hosts the world's largest wind tunnel and a rich history of aerospace innovation, preserved in a striking visual archive in the heart of Silicon Valley. At the southern tip of San Francisco Bay, surrounded by the tech giants Google, Apple, and Microsoft, sits the historic NASA Ames Research Center . Its rich history includes a grab bag of fascinating scientific research involving massive wind tunnels, experimental aircraft, supercomputing, astrobiology, and more. Founded in 1939 as a West Coast lab for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), NASA Ames was built to close the US gap with Germany in aeronautics research. Named for NACA founding member Joseph Sweetman Ames, the facility grew from a shack on Moffett Field into a sprawling compound with thousands of employees. A key motivation for the new lab was the need for huge wind tunnels to jump-start America's aeronautical research, which was far behind Germany's.